or thirty times, yet keeping their right foot all the time in the same place.  Some make their ceremonies with fifteen or sixteen pots, little and great, ringing a little bell when they make their mixtures, ten or twelve times.  They make a circle of water round about their pots and pray, divers sitting by them, and one in particular who reaches the pots to them; and they say certain words many times over the pots, and when they have done, they go to their idols, before which they strew their sacrifices, which they think very holy, and mark many of those who sit by in the foreheads, which they esteem highly.  There sometimes come fifty or even an hundred together, to wash at this well, and to sacrifice to these idols.

In some of these idol houses, there are people who stand by them in warm weather, fanning them as if to cool them; and when they see any company coming, they ring a little bell which hangs beside them, when many give them alms, particularly those who come out of the country.  Many of these idols are black and have brazen claws very long, and some ride upon peacocks, or on very ill-favoured fowls, having long hawks bills, some like one thing and some like another, but none have good faces.  Among the rest, there is one held in great veneration, as they allege be gives them all things, both food and raiment, and one always sits beside this idol with a fan, as if to cool him.  Here some are burned to ashes, and some only scorched in the fire and thrown into the river, where the dogs and foxes come presently and eat them.  Here the wives are burned along with the bodies of their deceased husbands, and if they will not, their heads are shaven and they are not afterwards esteemed.

The people go all naked, except a small cloth about their middles.  The women have their necks, arms, and ears decorated with rings of silver, copper, and tin, and with round hoops of ivory, adorned with amber stones and many agates, and have their foreheads marked with a great red spot, whence a stroke of red goes up the crown, and one to each side.  In their winter, which is in May, the men wear quilted gowns of cotton, like to our counterpanes, and quilted caps like our grocers large mortars, with a slit to look out at, tied beneath their ears.  When a man or woman is sick and like to die, they are laid all night before the idols, either to help their sickness or make an end of them.  If they do not mend that night, the friends come and sit up with them, and cry for some time, after which they take them to the side of the river, laying them on a raft of reeds, and so let them float down the river.